Title: Re: SEWE300B review
Post by will on 05/26/24 at 01:09:07
It is amazing what similar sound shaping tools can do to bring out subtly different qualities from all the other sound shapers that make up a system and room.... and how synergistic the end feeling can be from seemingly pretty small changes!
I have so far not been able to keep in gray glass RCA 6SN7s in any of my amps, always respecting them, but finding their style of warmth a little too obvious... the ways they balance toward bass here slightly masking some areas of fine detail...And the slight slowness with that (here), lacking some space and associated immediacy of leading and trailing edges I need. With system and room clearly a big part of it aside from preferences, and since you are exploring tubes a lot lately, I hope my experiences in a different system and room, using similar quality sound tools, might help some folks less tube crazy than us.
I am really glad those Preferred Shuguang 300Zs are holding up for you. They were characterful tubes here with nice density, coloration and resolution qualities... and it is fun knowing that if a little warm leaning for me, or too strong for my setup, these same traits could cause them to work well in yours!
Following your lead, I have been playing with various 12AU7 types, in positions they were designed to be used, and in E88CC positions with adapters. A few things in the pot, some minor bypass refinements in the CSP3, still smooth and a little sweet, but a little more neutral and fast, so more flexible with gain adjustments; new wires in my Omegas (more neutral, faster and more resolving); and still tuning in the Swiss Digital Fuse boxes with hollow fuse replacements, getting to where they do good things without overstating the sound and coloring my system slower and darker like using all solid copper and silver tends to do. Now I have 4 hollow silvers, two with Rhodium, and one solid silver.
But the 12AU7s... the flavor of 12AU7 types with adapters in E88CC positions I always find seductive, but in the past, finally they tend to sound a little unreal to me. Initially, I always like the sense of clarity and space they musically bring. But finally there is, for me, a difficult to grasp sort of leanness. Maybe it is that the added spacious clarity comes with a little less super fine detail??? leaving them a little empty here... I have to listen more and see if I can figure it out... But lately, this is not the case, the warmish pair of red top 12AU7s you sent me in the power positions of the CSP3 taking my music to amazing levels.
As I mentioned earlier, the pinched waste 7062 in my ZRock sounded pretty right, its resolving power cutting through some darkness I was having from new power tubes... But once again, that didn't last. The added power in my extra resolving ZRock, compared to nice old 12AU7s, put me a little closer to the signal being too powerful, and a little closer to distortions in the context of several pre stages in a row. But more, it just sounded "too good." The 7062 powered up the whole nicely in the many balances, but ended up sounding a little too right... a little hifi.
Then I tried them with adapters in the power tube positions of the CSP3 as a pair... this was even more impressive, two together, and showed more of the warmth of the tube. Very resolving as well, they sounded great, but more dominant in the whole. Then I heard it... though beautifully done, they were filling in too much of the space.
I lost a little of the anticipation of sounds coming out of empty seeming space I had grown dependent on... that weird thing of incredibly resolved fine detail in space that comes from such good timing that you hear more without it feeling harsh if right...those magical places where subtle smearing interferes less and less, making it music rather than a representation of it.
But being the first time I had used 12AU7 types in a 6922/E88CC position where it sounded pretty right, I took the hint... trying the less powerful red top 12AU7s... and after 4-5 days I guess, they still sound great in all balances... with less power, they allow a really natural sounding fine detail clarity in space that is not obvious but quite a contributor to a seductive musical experience. Along with the hollow fuse replacements they open up the big bass balanced 845s with amazing natural warmth and a beautifully complete space and detail complexity... I have more flexible balances that allow pushing my pre stages into lucid territory without getting too dense and full.
But it is even better... though I can pick it out, it does not sound like amazing complex detail and space. Instead, I am better able to hear all the natural complexity of the music and without trying... It was sort of amazingly revealing, and now it is all more completely revealed. It feels like the players conveying their emotions and expressions with less limitations...the space to sound relationships so naturally fast that you don't hear it as fast... more free flow.
At this level, on a decent solo violin recording, its like I can feel the tension rising for the next pull of the bow before there is sound... and once there is sound, the many subtle qualities that make that sound, string, bow hair, rosin, bridge and tail piece, woods... all the parts and qualities of the instrument unite, but are also differentiated enough to hear them specifically but naturally.
This completeness opens the experience into a landscape of gorgeous interactions, the most revelatory, being so much a part of the musical expression that the energy between the notes, leading to notes, is part of the experience... then with fundamentals and amazing harmonics, the player, the bowing, and each part of the violin are alive with the music and all that makes it...
I think this is in large part due to more complete space. Last night listening from my bath tub down the hall, where it is like the whole system room is the speaker, I spontaneously noticed the subtle string/bow connections shift and flow... even hearing the tension between the tail piece and bridge, and how the face wood vibrates harder, but with slightly damped harmonics when there is more pressure on the bow... pushing the bridge harder, and thus the face and sound post... those subtle things you hear if you are playing the violin in a good room... It did not feel like the details of differentiated sounds in differentiated space, though it was the revelations of such a complex of balances that seemed to make the magic work.
So more and more I think I am finding, that with good time, you not only hear more complete musical information (if it is there in the source and beyond), less smearing equaling more articulate and complex detail. But perhaps more importantly, less smearing creates more articulate space, which reveals even the subtlest sounds with more presence and complexity. When space and detail are balanced, I am always sort of shocked how it also feels more relaxed... more complete space, detail and speed relationships making the pace of, especially slower music, sound slower... more relaxed...
Long lead up to how tuning balances with tubes and all else, can turn really good sound into something beyond sound... mysterious and intoxicating...
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